Santa
by Kat Lee formerly Pirate Turner
Summary: Santa comes to all children. Multiple Disney fandoms, Het and Slash pairings. Mostly centering on the Air Buddies, the Aristocats, Mickey Mouse, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and, of course, Santa. 9th in Will's/Kat's 2012 12 Days of Christmas stories for my beloved Jack/Drew and our darling babies.


Title: "Santa"  
Author: Kat Lee, the author formerly known as Pirate Turner  
Dedicated To: This is the 9th Christmas story of my 12 Days of Christmas 2012 series for my beloved and wonderful husband, Jack aka Drew, who's always such an inspiration, and also our sweet children! Thank you, my darling soul mate! I love you!  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Santa comes to all children.  
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, names, codenames, places, items, fandoms, titles, and etc. are always © & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. Any and all original characters and everything else is © & TM the author and may not be reproduced in any way without the author's express, written permission. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.  
Author's Note: 244. That's the number of stories that were sitting on my hard drive collecting dust because I lack the energy and time to take care of them as I once did. My betaing pattern has always been to write, then type up if written on paper, the story, read it aloud to my beloved Jack and our children, editing as I go, and then finally format and post. Sadly, this part is simply taking too much of my time and energy, and my beloved Jack and I have too little time together in person these days to be able to keep up with my stories. So what to do? Give up writing? I actually considered it for a while, tried to make excuses to myself other than the large number of stories collecting cyber dust on my computer, as to why I lacked the energy and Muse to write new tales. And then, with the turn of the new year, I decided to stop running and face the problem. The problem is, quite frankly, that once one gets so bogged down in formatting and editing that writing is no longer a pleasure but the actual posting of those writings becomes a hassle and - egad! - work, it's time to cut something out, and that will never be the writing process. So, in short, yes, there will be mistakes in this tale. Yes, it's missing about half of the header information I usually include. But I wrote it for pleasure and am posting it in hopes of sharing that pleasure with others. Do with it as you will.

Every Saturday morning before Christmas, and before dawn, the children started coming to that special place in the park where they knew Santa would come. They came from the air, from far away and nearby, from under the sea, and from the wilds of the rainforest and the Animal Kingdom. Some came with lists longer than they would ever grow, while others came hoping for just one or two things for their closest friends. Some came dressed to the nines, while others came with just enough clothing to cover their otherwise bare bottoms.

This was the one place in the world where they came from all times, too. There were children from old London, from modern day Hawaii, from the 1700s, and from times and worlds never before imagined by the public, who all these other children came to beat in line. There were Native American children from a time before the white man destroyed everything they held dear. There were the kids of Eskimos who had never seen such bright lights made by man before coming to this strange world, and children from times even older than humanity's first ancestors.

They came in all colors, in all sizes and shapes, and in all sorts of bodies to this one place in the whole of the park, this one magical place where the true Santa Claus would appear, and then they waited. They milled around, pacing nervously in the lines, some crying from sheer exhaustion, but none would give up their spot. Every one of them wanted to get to their Santa as quickly as they could. They wanted to get to him while there was still time, and magic left in his bag, to grant their special Christmas wishes.

A few knew that Santa's magic would never truly run out, but others still worried that something might again happen to the Christmas crystal or some other disaster might find a way to stop Santa from granting their wish. Some knew that they didn't really have to ask Santa for what they wanted - that he already knew before they ever opened their mouths and voiced their request -, but they still wanted a chance to meet Santa again for themselves and to ask him for their heart's desire.

Parents were there, too, accompanying their children and wishing the park would close for just one magical day so that they didn't have to rise so early. Queens and Kings stood in line amongst peasants and villains. Old enemies stood before each other, each trying desperately to keep from letting it be known just how much they despised the other one for they wanted nothing to mire their holiday or keep their child from Santa. The heroes didn't want their kids to hurt, and the villains simply did not wish to hear even more wailing than normal. (After all, even criminals get headaches, and every parent knows that there's nothing louder, shriller, or more apt to hurt their heads than the squall of a disappointed child.)

Every one in the park who either was a child or cared for a child was there in the park that morning. It didn't matter if the family had one or a hundred kids. Every one of them wanted to see their Santa, and the animals were no exception. Kitties, puppies, rabbits, mice, and even bears stood in line, each baby animal eagerly awaiting a chance to glimpse Santa. A special river had even been formed so that the fish, too, could reach out and be touched by Santa. Of course, the fish were not alone in that river. They were joined by crabs, lobsters, sharks, and, yes, even merpeople for this was the most magical land of all and every one was welcome.

Every one was welcome, and every one was gathered to that one spot in the millions of miles the park encompassed. But nerves were frayed and all were growing ever more tired by the moment. Suddenly, something in the midst of the animals growled. The sound was quiet for a growl but still ferocious. The animals immediately went on edge. Each looked to the other, and then a golden puppy started laughing.

"Geez, man! What's the shizzle with that cat?!"

"Yeah." Another puppy joined in the first one's laughter. "It was only Budderball's stomach!"

"The quietest noise can seem as large as a mountain when all else is silent," spoke the pup called Buddah.

"Budderball!" the one girl amongst the five hissed out of the corner of her mouth. "I _told_ you you'd better eat something!"

The fattest pup of the lot lowered his big, brown eyes to his yellow paws. "Sorry," he murmured.

B-Dawg and Mudbud were still laughing, however. "Look at those cats, dude! They think they're so cool, but they sure ain't looking cool now! Hey, kitty," B-Dawg obnoxiously called to one of the kittens whose fur was completely standing on end, "you gotta any fur left?"

"B-Dawg," Buddah protested, "that is not nice!"

"So?" B-Dawg chuckled. "It's a cat! We're dogs! We don't like cats! Scat, kitty cat!"

"B-Dawg," Rosebud whined, "you're going to get us thrown out! You know what that mouse says about everybody getting along!"

But her words of advice went unheard by her brothers as the kitten in the middle of the three frightened babes soothed his fur and fixed the dogs with a fierce glower. "I'll give you a Scat Cat," the black cat spoke and began to stalk forward.

"Berloiz, dear, don't wander off."

"Yeah. You better listen to your momma, dude, 'fore you get the bite!" B-Dawg gnashed his teeth warningly.

"Berloiz!" the mother cat cried, oblivious to her husband's soothing voice saying that Berloiz could handle the mutt and the nasty dog's siblings' efforts to calm him. Berloiz darted forward and, with a hiss, swiftly struck. B-Dawg fell back with a whine, and when his family saw the four red slices across his handsome face, they all started forward only to put on the proverbial brakes when a giant mouse stepped between them.

Scat Cat and Thomas fell just short of the dogs. They were on the mouse's left side while the pack of mutts, two big ones and five little ones, stayed on the mouse's right. "They started it," Thomas spat, his furry, orange ears laid back against his feline head.

"It doesn't matter who started it!" Duchess exclaimed, her fluffy, white plume of a tail whisking through the chilly, morning air. "It's Christmas! There should be no fighting!"

"That's right!" the female dog agreed.

"But, Molly - "

"Don't 'but' me, Buddy. Your son did start it."

Thomas watched the interaction between the adult dogs and suddenly felt a pang of sympathy as Buddy asked in a whisper that wasn't soft enough not to be overheard - not that any cat couldn't overhear anything a dog had to say, any way, with their superior hearing and the canine's eternal failure to keep their cool -, "Why is it they're always my children when they misbehave?"

"Because they take after you," Molly retorted, her own tail whisking, "when they get into trouble!"

Buddy lowered his head, and Thomas unconsciously did, as well. He found Berloiz now sitting between his paws and looking up at him. "I did good, didn't I, Daddy?" Thomas winced inwardly. He couldn't speak for the dog and his puppies, but Berloiz was taking after him. He never would have dared to attack anybody before Thomas had come into his life and made being an alley cat seem so cool that that was now all little Berloiz could think about becoming. He knew Duchess, Mickey, and evidently Molly, too, would never approve of Berloiz's actions, but Thomas was still secretly kind of proud that he had taken up for himself.

Thomas felt eyes boring into him as he hesitated in answering Berloiz's hopeful query and looked up to see not only both grown dogs but Duchess, as well, looking at him expectantly. Before he could speak, Scat Cat tried to come to his rescue. "You swing a mad claw, little buddy," he told Berloiz and stroked his tiny head. Berloiz's grin filled his face.

"My children were not raised to be fighters," Duchess spoke angrily, "nor alley cats." Her blue eyes cut into both Thomas and Scat Cat, and Scat actually leaned back behind Thomas a little bit. "Do not misunderstand me," Duchess continued as she prowled forth, her tail cutting angry slices through the air. "I love you both. You know that, and I have nothing against alley cats. They are actually quite charming, as my darrrling Thomas has proved time and again, but my children were not raised to pick fights."

"But I didn't pick it, Momma!" Berloiz cried. He pointed a claw at B-Dawg, who whined again and hid behind his brothers at the sight of that dangerous claw. "He did!"

"He was making fun of all of us who were spooked by that noise," Duchess replied, now casting her furious glower over at the dogs, "something that no gentleman would ever do."

"Hey, lady, I never said I was a gentleman!"

"Hush, B-Dawg," Molly commanded.

"He has a - " Buddy started to agree with his pup.

"HUSH!" she growled at both of them, her lips pulling back from her mouth and revealing her teeth in warning.

"What I was going to say," Duchess continued, her tail still whisking with her irritation, "is that there are other ways to set an uncouth individual right besides attacking them. Violence should never be used when words can dissolve a dispute."

"Dissolve or resolve, Momma?" the little, brown kitten staying close to his momma's left side spoke for the first time.

She kissed his head. "Dissolve, Toulouse. Dissolving an argument is always purrferable to resolving one, because in order to resolve an argument, one must actually partake in that argument."

Buddah's tail wagged. "I think the cat lady's wise, Momma," he whispered.

"I do agree with her," Molly said, her angry eyes meeting Duchess', "on using words instead of violence, but I don't think that I like that you called my son uncouth, cat."

"Let us consider the facts, shall we?" Duchess sat down with an air of importance around her that made her seem like a Queen. She daintily licked a paw and then used that paw to clean her ear while she started Molly down. "It was one of your children who frightened many of us by emitting a growl from his stomach that was caused, quite simply, by a lack of proper feeding before coming into the public. It was also _your_ children who proceeded to make fun of every one here who became startled by that sound. My sweet Berloiz may have been wrong to slap him, and certainly to cut him, but it was wrong of your children in the beginning, Molly, to make fun of every one. Do you not agree," Duchess asked imperiously, "or shall we purrhaps ask the opinion of that mother cub down there," she pointed out the bear in question with a dainty claw, "whose children were also spooked?"

"Are you threatening my mate?" Buddy demanded, growling savagely.

"People, people!" another dog chimed in. This dog was the patriarch of the family who had stood in line right behind the Buddies. "Can we shut up about all the fighting and get the line moving again? Go up already, chica!" he called to Rosebud. "The line's moving without us!"

"Stay out of this, Chihuahua," Buddy started.

"Sheesh, dude! You just wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, or did your team finally lose? You animals are picking a fight on the weekend before Christmas in front of your _kids_! Now I may not be an alley cat," he continued, glancing at Thomas and Scat Cat, "but I was a street dog at one time, and even I know you're setting a wrong example!"

"Raise your own children," Molly, Duchess, Buddy, and Thomas all snapped at the smaller animal as one.

"I do a fine job of that!" the Chihuahua yipped, his small, brown body trembling with his anger.

"Yes, you do, Papi," his wife reassured him with a kiss on his cheek, "but let's leave them to their fight. We can keep the line moving, if they don't want to." She started to step around the others but found her pathway blocked.

"Breaking lines is not nice," Buddah told them.

"Then move the freaking line!" Papi yipped as his puppies chorused behind him, "Yeah!"

Mickey sighed where he stood in the middle of the cats and dogs with his gloved hands held out to stop the fight. "Enough, all of you! Papi's right: you are not setting a good example for your children. This is Christmas, folks. It isn't about who's right and who's wrong, or who raises the children better, or whose children are better. This is about family and love, and for the record, both B-Dawg and Berloiz were wrong. B-Dawg, they may be cats, but they're still your equals, and Toulouse, your mother's right. You should never use your claws to resolve a fight when talking can do. Neither one of you is any better or worse than the other one, but _all_ of you will be thrown out of here immediately if you don't settle down and behave!"

In light of the mouse's uproar, every one of the Aristocats and Buddies lowered their heads. It was Budderball, whose hungry stomach had originally started the entire mess and who now broke the silence that followed. "But why are they here, any way?"

"For the same reason that you are," Mickey advised him.

"Uh huh! We're here to see Santa Paws!"

"Yeah," Rosebud chimed in, "and the little boys and girls are here for Santa Claus!"

"Every one should have a part of Christmas," Buddah agreed, "but why gather here if they're not here for Santa Claus or Paws?"

"Because they are here to see a Santa," Mickey explained. "Everybody is. They're here for Santa Claws."

"Santa Claus is going to see a cat?" B-Dawg asked incredulously.

"Not Santa _Claus_, you silly dog," Berloiz explained.

Duchess warned, "Berloiz - "

"Santa _Claws_," the black kitty finished emphasizing.

"Who's Santa Claws?" Rosebud asked.

Marie finally spoke up from behind her mother's right leg. "Why, Santa Claws is the cat version of the humans' Santa Claus, of course."

"There's a cat Santa Claus?" B-Dawg asked, still disbelieving. "Pshaw! Yeah, right!"

"It is the truth!" Mickey spoke, holding up a hand to silence the disobedient puppy who seemed to continue to stir up further trouble.

"He's Mrs. Claus' best friend," Toulouse spoke up again.

"See for yourselves," Mickey stated. The crowds parted as he pointed both hands in the direction of Santa Claus, and sure enough, the animals could see that there wasn't just a dog standing beside Santa Claus dressed in a red suit but a cat as well. Both feline and canine eyes widened in disbelief. There was also a monkey, a bear, a giraffe, and . . . Was that a _dragon_ in a Santa suit?!

"For every type of child," Mickey continued his explanation, "there is a Santa. There is Santa Paws to reward you good puppies, and to give you coal and rotten bones when you misbehave, and there is Santa Claws to reward the good kitties and punish them with soiled litter when they misbehave. Every good child deserves a good present, and a happy Christmas, and for every type of child, there is a Santa to give them presents." He pointed out the river winding between them next. "Why do you think even the fish gather today?"

All of the animals looked at him incredulously. "There's a Santa Fish?" Buddah asked. Even he wasn't certain he was believing this lesson!

"Yes," Mickey affirmed. "Now can all of you get along, or am I going to have to bring you up out of here?"

Thomas and Buddy looked at each other. Duchess and Molly shared a glance, each finally offering the other a tiny glimmer of a smile. Their children stared holes in one another. Finally, Rosebud spoke. "Nice bow," she complimented Marie.

The little, white kitten puffed her chest up proudly. "Why, thank you. That's a pretty bow in your hair, too."

"Would you like to trade?"

"I think yours might be a little too big for me."

"You're probably right."

"But thanks, any way."

"Hey, us girls gotta stick together when our brothers are acting nuts!"

"So totally true!" Marie agreed, and she crossed the line to stand beside Rosebud.

"High five!" Rosebud told her.

Perplexed, Marie blinked in confusion. "High what?"

"High five," Rosebud repeated. "Hold your paw up." Her tail wagged, and then she pressed her paw to Marie's as the kitten lifted her foot. "That's a high five. It's kind of like saying we're so much cooler than any one else." She grinned and laughed, her brown eyes dancing with delight.

Marie giggled. "We most definitely arrre!" she purred delightedly.

The girls started to walk back up the line, and one by one, their family followed them. Thomas and Scat Cat were the last to go, and one whispered to the other, "I could have so ate him."

"Yeah, but not in one sitting!"

"I heard that!" Mickey exclaimed, his tail stiffening with his anger but his big ears wriggling with fear.

"Thomas!" Duchess reprimanded.

"Sorry!" The swish of his long, white-tipped, and orange tail spoke the truth - that he didn't regret speaking the fact at all -, but Mickey let it go. It was Christmas. He had nephews to take to see Santa Mouse himself, and besides, his good friend, Walt Disney, a Santa ambassador himself, had blessed him long ago with more magic and protection than these other animals could ever hope to glimpse. He couldn't be eaten by any one. Christmas could be damaged far more easily, but he wouldn't let it on his watch as Disney's now head Santa ambassador. He grinned and waved at the Santas as the river ran between his legs, taking the fish closer to their Santa and Papi and his family excitedly yipped while running around him and further up the line. Christmas would not be damaged. The families of Disney would get along, and all would have their own version of a merry, merry Christmas - or the mouse would roar, all heck would break loose, and, in the end, he'd still make certain that Christmas was merry, after all. "Merry Christmas!" he called.

"HO! HO! HO!" The Santas' voices shook the land, and Mickey grinned. The last Santa had arrived to care for the giant children. Now, surely, nobody would mess with Christmas. "MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL!"

Mickey smiled as his nephews, Minnie, and her nieces ran around him. "We're almost there," he assured them, only slightly annoyed that even they, too, had to wait for their chance to see Santa. Christmas was always a long wait but was well worth it , and they would all have a merry Christmas this year and every one that followed.

**The End**


End file.
